The Polish word
herb derives from the German
Erbe, "inheritance" or "heritage", and denotes a
coat of arms. Unrelated families could be granted the same
coat of arms and thus become co-armigers sharing the same
herb. Bearers of the same coat of arms were variously called
herbowni,
współherbowni (co-armorials), or
klejnotni, from '''',
crest. The numbers of such individual families often reached several dozen; several hundred were not uncommon. The heraldic-family tradition constitutes one of the hypotheses about the origins of the
Polish nobility: the unique feature of
Polish heraldry being the practice of inducting unrelated families into the same coat of arms, sometimes with minor variations of
tincture. In time, all those families were integrated into the Polish nobility, the
szlachta. The number of families within a particular "heraldic family" varied over time and could be increased as a result of
heraldic adoption. Entire noble classes from other nations, for example from
Lithuania, were incorporated by adoption—granted an
indygenat—into the Polish nobility and its heraldic system. Removal from the heraldic system was also possible, by
vituperatio nobilitatis, a legal procedure for
revocation of nobility. Polish coats of arms have their individual names, usually stemming from the heraldic clan's ancient seat or
battle cry; or from the way the arms were depicted "
canting arms". The battle-cry derivation of many Polish heraldic family names has given rise to the now outdated term "
proclamatio arms", referring to the names'
hortatory nature. From the 17th to the 20th centuries, belonging to a distinguished house and a shared armorial lineage mattered to members of the
szlachta. That is why most modern Polish
armorials are arranged by clan names, rather than by their respective family arms, as was the case with 16th-century armorials. ==See also==